I do feel that the merits of Vito's shot, be it for "art"or "photography" (Personally I didn't know there was a difference) are clouded by personal motives and emotion.

Vito's shot is titled "wind" and appears to expand on the theme through intentionally blurred images.Many a fine photographer (much finer than myself or pretty much anyone who lurks on these forums) has used one or another technique to achieve this same effect. Point in fact, the May issue of the highly respected Photo Life magazine published an article by Ken Storch entitled " The Aesthetics of Blur". Some of the shots in the article were quite similar to Vito's offering, others were even more blurred.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I'm not particularly fond of this technique, but I have experimented with it - with mixed results. I would be very surprised if many of the posters to this thread have not done the same.

This is an artistic attempt. I find it difficult to believe that the photographers in this forum could be so obtuse as to fail to recognize the intent of Vito's work, whether or not he was successful.

Rodney, I know that you are very sensitive to what you construe as personal attacks directed towards yourself. How is Plain Jane to view your comments but as an attack against her? Plain Jane's comments are clearly an attempt to calm the waters of this current discussion. I agree wholeheartedly with her.

Rodney, I know that you are very sensitive to what you construe as personal attacks directed towards yourself. How is Plain Jane to view your comments but as an attack against her? Plain Jane's comments are clearly an attempt to calm the waters of this current discussion. I agree wholeheartedly with her.

There is nothing rude or ugly about telling someone to "get with the program". Plain Jane seem to think this forum is all about praising someone's work.

All comments in this thread should be directed to Vito about his recent submission. Anyone who uses his thread to police the forum are the ones who are being rude and here I am participating so that makes me rude too. UGH!

As far as vitos photo is concerned I cant really comment because I find impressionist stuff rather boring, I look at so called great works of art and cant see what all the fuss is about, Ive seen more talent in my grandsons kindergarten paintings, BUT that is just my opinion. I think if one posts in a critiques thread one has to expect at least sometimes to get criticism, been there myself but I certainly learned from it.

Narcis Oblivion said "As an old school photographer, my personal opinion is that photography is the image you obtain using the tools you have within your camera, period.
[b]I find that comment funny considering that sooooo much is done in the darkroom, straight from the camera?only if you never used a darkroom yourself, and the guys who process your photos at the local camera shop, yes they do alter your photos.:-)

Narcis Oblivion said "As an old school photographer, my personal opinion is that photography is the image you obtain using the tools you have within your camera, period.
[b] I find that comment funny considering that sooooo much is done in the darkroom, straight from the camera? only if you never used a darkroom yourself, and the guys who process your photos at the local camera shop, yes they do alter your photos.:-)[/quote]

aladyforty, you are absolutely right! I should have explained this statement a little more precisely. If people explain themselves fully as to what there intent is when posting images, maybe this thread would not even exist.

Anyways, back to the topic. When film comes out of the camera, you can alter it in the darkroom by using filters, exposure time, chemical processing, burning and dodging,etc. But there is only a finite amount of image information that can be drawn out from a negative. Remember the old saying, "the camera never lies"? This may hold true for traditional photography but not for digital. With digital there are endless ways to alter an image. How many of us really understand the mathematical algorithms that process these images? How far do you process an image and still call it a photograph? Are you a photographer or are you a computer geek? The debate continues.........

Narcis Oblivion said "As an old school photographer, my personal opinion is that photography is the image you obtain using the tools you have within your camera, period.
I find that comment funny considering that sooooo much is done in the darkroom, straight from the camera? only if you never used a darkroom yourself, and the guys who process your photos at the local camera shop, yes they do alter your photos.:-)

Quote:

aladyforty, you are absolutely right! I should have explained this statement a little more precisely. If people explain themselves fully as to what there intent is when posting images, maybe this thread would not even exist.

Anyways, back to the topic. When film comes out of the camera, you can alter it in the darkroom by using filters, exposure time, chemical processing, burning and dodging,etc. But there is only a finite amount of image information that can be drawn out from a negative. Remember the old saying, "the camera never lies"? This may hold true for traditional photography but not for digital. With digital there are endless ways to alter an image. How many of us really understand the mathematical algorithms that process these images? How far do you process an image and still call it a photograph? Are you a photographer or are you a computer geek? The debate continues.........

If it is ok for film photographers to use all the available tricks in the darkroom, then why shouldn't the same be true for digital photographers in the digital darkroom?

The majority of photo editing software techniques are simply the incorporation of darkroom techniques into digital form.

A negative holds a bit more information than our digitals can capture.

To get back to Vito's image... here is a shot which is essentially right out of the camera.Any manipulation is certainly no more than what could be done in a quality film lab. The image is abstract in that it tries to "see" beyond the familiar, or rather through the familiar to... (?) The responses have touched a lot of nerves, both positive and negative, many with bias. (how can you respond to art otherwise?)

I think Vito's shot is an interesting photograph. It appears to be well exposed. The lighting and colours are pleasing. From a compostion standpoint, it is a little suspect, as the elements are not defined clearly enough to really know what I'm looking at. From my (limited) experience with this type of shot, it may have been better to balance the blur with a little more clear detail, either through more DOF or sharper focus. (or both) I just think that there needs to be a little more for the eye to hang onto.

The more I look at this shot, the more I appreciate the artistic intent and attempt. If this was a part of a series, I would like to see more. This might give a clearer idea of what Vito saw when he looked at this scene.

Personally I like it when a photographer goes and uses his or her knowledge of photography to push what they can achieve creatively. Chances are that if this image was re-captured using an appropriate depth-of-field and faster shutter speed it would probably be very boring indeed.

I have seen a lot of creative photography and a fair amount of it doesn't equal Vito's effort here.

As a constructive criticism I think if you could pick out more detail in the clearest grass seeds (i'm pretty certain thats what they are!) then this would be more pleasing to the eye. I think you could achieve this by using a wide aperture and a slightly higher shutter-speed. The idea is definately worth experimenting with and you should follow it up.